As they drove back through Wells and out the other side, he forgot about his friend and remembered why people loved motorbiking. He’d taken a few rides on one of the other recruits’ bikes back on the service. It was the freedom. So much more electrifying than his old pushbike. This was what flying felt like. He remembered the old game of pilots he had played with Peter and that one sickening, exhilarating trip on the plane in training – the smell of petrol mixed with his own sweat. Jack, of course, knew all about real flying. It seemed oddly fitting that the usurping American had all this experience, but he, an Englishman who had the misfortune not to be born into the right class, did not. Behind them, the sun had long since sunk into the Wash. It was that strange time on a Midsummer night when it should have been dark but wasn’t. Grey rainclouds moved across a pale, cold sky and the flints of the buildings they flew past sparked golden in the leftover light.

Jack turned and winked at him. For God’s sake, man, face front, stop showing off. Was he drunk? He bloody hoped not.

At Salthouse, the road opened to the sky, and to the left of them the marsh grasses swayed in the wind, rippling down to the sea. Arthur felt a surge of dizzying euphoria edged with fear.

*

A young American was asking Verity to dance. He was pimply and gauche, and the others were gone – she wanted to say no. But there was nothing for it, all the other girls she knew were dancing, she might as well warm up. The band was playing all the big band American favourites, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, that sort of thing. No more jiving.

After her second dance, she looked up at the clock. It was almost midnight. The band had switched to a slow beat and the shadowy dancers slumped onto each other, the lucky ones’ arms entwined, the unlucky ones seeking solace in each other’s company, determined not to show their disappointment. She no longer wanted to dance.